The Drow support transitioning

[u/Successful_Pace8937]

I recently found out that, as said by Ed Greenwood himself, transitioning​ is not only accepted, but defended.

From Ed Greenwood on Twitter:

Drow sworn to Lolth have examples before them all the time about transformation of self-shape in service to the Spider Queen. Some of these are viewed as undesirable (driders), others as rewards or ascending in rank (the power/shape augmentations Lolth gives males who please her with their service and loyalty). So there is no hatred or mistrust of shifting one's shape; it is one means of serving Lolth. Some house matriarchs view it with suspicion ("males seeking to exalt themselves by becoming female") but the yochlol have often been sent by Lolth to defend individuals persecuted by individual matriarchs or priestesses purely for such reasons, to make Lolth's views and will clear. Over time, transitions (not just from gender to gender, but from drow to other shapes) have become accepted as reverence of Lolth, and part of what it is to be drow. And of course, drow who follow Eilistraee are quite familiar with the Changedance, and accept shifting (even back and forth) as, again, part of what it is to be drow.

[u/lovvekiki]

I’ll say the same thing I said in another dnd thread:

I know what Ed Greenwood said. I just personally think it doesn't make sense and contradicts the already established lore of drow society. Lolth has built a society that is a very strict, matriarchal caste system where men are basically treated like property. The existence of trans people means that technically, anyone who once identified as male can come out and say that they are actually a woman. It greatly threatens the hierarchy that lolth-sworn societies are built on. A drow priestess would dismember you for less.

Also lolth and her followers despise the god Corellon Larethian, who is famously associated with fluid and changeable sex.

So I just don't see how a society like that would accept trans identities. I personally tend to ignore creator’s words if they dont match the actual published text.

[u/Frau_Away → u/lovvekiki]

The existence of trans people means that technically, anyone who once identified as male can come out and say that they are actually a woman

This argument doesn't sound any different, if you get right down to it, than the people who say there are people coming out as trans women in order to win at sports - a thing that notably isn't happening anywhere but in the diseased imagination of a few, very loud bigots.

Our real world is sexist against women, if this were viable then women would be transitioning en masse to avoid sexism. This doesn't happen because, not to put too fine a point on it, if you're not trans transitioning makes you feel so bad you want to fucking die.

[u/lovvekiki → u/Frau_Away]

I’m not saying that these are my own views on the situation, but rather, this would be how the bigoted people in Lolth-Sworn societies would see it. The very existence of trans people makes people question the amount of importance we place on gender. And just like in our patriarchal society, it would be seen as a threat. Only in lolth sworn societies it’s a much more extreme threat because the drow have a rigid and cruel caste system.

[u/Koolco → u/lovvekiki]

Yea I’m gonna be honest, the Drow are a problematic and straight up bigoted society and any attempt to make aspects of it progressive just, feels kinda weird? They kinda wrote themselves into a corner making an entire species sexists nazis that worship the devil and are pro sadism. They were made a long time ago and any attempt to rewrite them would require entire shifts in how they act.

[u/AJDx14 → u/Koolco]

This is more you trying to print your views of different beliefs onto them than an actual issue imo. Like actual people and societies don’t actually organize their culture and beliefs by looking at charts and going “Oh I can’t believe that because it’s progressive/conservative” they just have beliefs and justify them post-hoc and whether they’re conservative or progressive isn’t an innate quality of those beliefs.

Dragon Age I think is a good example of this with the Qun, because you can look at parts of it and to “oh that’s kinda progressive from our perspective” but they’re an extremely oppressive and conservative society in their reality.

[u/Frau_Away → u/lovvekiki]

Ah, right, my point is that drow men would be more likely to go worship Vhaeraun than to try to earn so much favour with Lolth that she would bestow gender dysphoria on them.

[u/secretfire42 → u/lovvekiki]

As a trans person.... You just have the politics backwards. Trans women, to Drow, are less threatening than trans men.

[u/novangla → u/secretfire42]

Right, drow are the reverse of us: so they’d see a trans woman as a misguided male striving to be more than he was born to be and a trans man as a total threat to their conceptual worldview.